Loving whose way?

“I did it my way” is a song that could easily describe the way sometimes we love others.  We seem to forget to look at people’s needs or the phase they are in on their journey and focus instead on what we consider the “right” way to love.  Loving our way is easy, wouldn’t you agree? Loving people that are easy to love is a delight, the challenge comes when God places in our path people that are really tough to love, and to top it off He asks us to love them His way.

Have you ever had “those” people in your life?  You know, the ones that defy us and push our patience to what we think is the limit. The people that keep us on our knees because we know without God we would say things that we would regret.  “Those” people are placed strategically by God to help us grow and to glorify Him.  

I imagine it like this… we have this huge window in front of us, but we are willing to open just a tiny part of it because that is how we do things and that is what we feel comfortable doing, we receive some light and fresh air, but if we would be willing to open the whole window and rely completely on God’s grace to love His way, then His light would overwhelm us and it would shine brightly in our lives. We would never go back to just that tiny opening.  This reminds me of the title of a book by Joy Dawson “Forever Ruined for the Ordinary” How else can you describe it?  Once we love the way God asks us to love there is no going back to what we knew.  

Jesus loved in unusual ways, in ways no one had seen before.  He was not afraid to go against the norm set by society or to challenge common sense.

“You have heard that the Law of Moses says, ‘love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy.  But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!  In that way you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven.”  (Matthew 5:43-45)

And we read in Matthew 5:39-40 “If you are slapped on the right cheek, turn the other, too.  If you are ordered to court and your shirt is taken from you, give your coat too.”  In the Bible we can find a lot of wonderful inspiration to love in unconventional ways, the way God loves us.   

 “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power.  Then Jesus went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the Devil, for God was with him.” (Acts 10:38)

How many people is God strategically placing in our path? Are we willing to go to our “market place” and live the Word? God has anointed us with the Holy Spirit and He is with us, so we can also go around doing good.